Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen

Whoever wrote the lyrics to that song obviously didn't stay at the Centrum Hotel! Let me explain..........

It was too easy. The car ride to Heathrow from Wales. Dropping Jodie off at Terminal 3, then dropping the hire car back and getting the shuttle to terminal 5. Arriving with 2 mintues to wait until our flight was open to check in. There were no lines at the check in. A great flight. A taxi right outside the airport. A lovely cab driver. It was all going too smoothly - then we arrived at the hotel. The taxi driver asked if we were happy. "As Larry" I replied. He said, "Ok, if you're happy, then I'm happy". It wasn't until we entered the hotel that I realised what he was probably talking about.

We had arrived at 7.30pm, we booked in and went up to our room on the 3rd floor. I say "room", but it was more like a wardrobe with a long single bed down one side and a bedhead slotted in the middle to break it up into two beds.

I looked out the window and across the road was a non stop sex show and topless bar. Jen looked and added...... and I think those girls are prostitutes!

After much deliberating and looking at each other, both wanting to go somewhere else, but both knowing that it would be too hard, we decided to just go out, get some food and get back before it got dark, which luckily wasn't until quite late. I knew where the Hard Rock Cafe was and it seemed like a safe enought place to go as far as knowing where it was and having an idea of what we would get to eat there. Jen suggested we get hammered!

The bar was noisy, we couldn't hear each other and the place seemed full of grosse English blokes pawing over the waitress. Eat up Jen - let's get the hell out of here! 10.10pm - still light.

We got home, pursing our lips at the groseness. Jen checked things out on the street and said,"oh, I can see someone watching TV over there..." then after watching for a few more seconds added...."um, I think it's porn". Luckily it had double glazed windows. Pity the room had no air. You can't have both I guess. We tucked up and popped the telly on - scrunched on one bed - the only place you could see the TV and then we realised that we were watching he same show as the people across the road! Not porn as it turns out, although taht seemed very plausible at the time!

The bathroom: You opened the door and stepped into the shower. The toilet was an after thought as was the massive, circular shower curtain that went around the entire room.... except for the toilet. The shower hose was twinned with the sink taps where you turned it on. After the shower you pulled back the curtain and stepped back into the living/bedroom area.

During the night, we both felt hot and had to open the window, but it turns out, we found out in the morning, that the radiator had been on the whole time. Funnily enough it was the best night's sleep I'd had since leaving home!

Now what do to in Copenhagen when you've only got a few hours, don't know where you are going and aren't fussed on walking too far? Hop on - Hop off Bus! Now the city isn't very pretty, but we did see where Mary lives in the winter and there was one street where Hans Christian Anderson used to live which has lovely, old, pastel coloured buildings along a canal where we hopped off for a pint and a stare at people.........

....... until a scatting jazz band set up right next to us and a woman lit up her cigar at the next table - honestly!!!!!

Next job - back to the hotel to pick up the bags (one things I must say is that the hotel staff [all 3 I spoke to] were perhaps the friendliest, most helpful people I've ever dealt with!) adn then to the ship.

There are 2,600 people on board the Star Princess and so Jen and I have decided that we get a point when we see the same person twice - so far the score is Jen: 3 Shell: 2. We're wondering if we can go the whole 10 days without making small talk to a single person. Will let you know how we go.

Goodbye Doesn't Mean This Has To Be The End......

Today we say goodbye to the loveliest sister anybody has ever known. She's better than Jan, Marcia and Cindy Brady put altogether. Way more supportive than Kylie is to Dannii. She will let me know when I look ridiculous - unlike those Olsen twins who seem to encourage each other to look stupid and she's also musical like the nolan sisters - but there's only of her. The Nolans needed 4 people to get their 'sound'.

So here is a little montage of pics from our tour of my lovely sister - Jodie

Sipping the necessary double espresso

Pant wetting laughter with our gorgeous Jen

It's a girls' night out, and honey there ain't no doubt, we're gonna dance every dance until the band goes home. We'll it's our night to rock, no watching that o'clock. Oh, ain't not doubt, Lordy it's a girls' night out! - "Girls' Night Out" by The Judds

My pretty sister


My comical sister, about to eat her breakfast with the baby cutlery she'd been given

See you in 3 more weeks Girlie Robbins.

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"Have you ever wondered why the crime rate in Sandford is so low, yet the accident rate is so high?" Sargeant Angel, Hot Fuzz

We arrived at Hay on Wye late in the afternoon. People were going about their everyday business as usual. Nothing seemed out of sorts. Our B&B was cozy and very central, positioned just across the road from the town square where the clock tower chimed on the hour and then again every 15 minutes..... all through the day and night! Our hosts were very accommodating, which led us into a somewhat false sense of normality in the town.

The following day we ventured into the village to peruse the 30 bookshops. Each shop we entered made us more aware that the locals here in the village were a little....... different.

Do we detect a little bit of snobbery in some of the high fallutin bookshops?


Is there a secret society here amongst the literary villagers that the mere visitor is not privy to?


At least at the end of each long day of wandering and wondering we were able to return to our lovely B&B which included one of the most fabulous gardens we've ever seen. This is where 5sies were spent sipping a glass of wine before dinner at the local pub.

This is the last stop in Wales.......... tomorrow is goodbye to Jodie and Hello to Copenhagen and the Baltic Sea.

'cause it's funny!

A lovely Place in the Sun

As we drive through beautiful, picturesque Wales, we notice that there are many places that you just wouldn't want to stay (Hello Barry!). We have been very lucky with all the places that we've stayed at thus far - and Aberaeron is no exception. What a gorgeous little village. We had planned to stay in Aberystwyth, but it was suggested that Aberaeron might be more to our taste - and right they were!

This place just got better and better. We booked 2 double rooms and were given a whole cottage looking onto the harbour.

The view from our window

We sat on the little wall across the tiny road, a stone's throw from our front door, sipped our aperitifs while watching the tides come in and out and the boaties maneuvering their vessels in and out of tiny spaces.

Our cottage is the pink one on the right

The village was cute. Lots of pastel coloured buildings and flowers a plenty hanging outside.

We ended our stay with a fantastic meal at the Harbour Master Hotel with Jen stating that she had just eaten the best lamb chops of her life.

A little less conversation a little more action please - take 2

Man in van in the middle of the gentile, literary capital of the UK: (shouting - could be heard from down the street) "DON'T YOU START THAT SHIT WITH ME - I'LL RIP YOUR FUCKIN' HEAD OFF"

Woman on phone to police (suspected car accident report): "Did I go after him? By the time I got to the bottom of my hill, he'd be half way to Hereford."

Woman on phone (very babyish voice): "Yes, I got my dog neutered!"

To be continued.........

The Lawsuit Cafe

If you ever find yourself in St David's, you might want to stay well away from the Pebble Espresso Cafe. Let me set the scene for you. There is a lovely little court yard with about 5 small tables in it just outside a gallery that sells cards and bits and pieces, then up a narrow winding staircase there is the cafe where you order your coffee. We walked into the gallery to find a woman with a face like thunder mopping up a spillage at the bottom of the stairs. It turns out that just before we walked in a customer, who was carrying a full tray of hot coffees and and a hot chocolate in an unnecessarily tall, thin glass (think about balancing) down the stairs and fell down the last step throwing the tray and all the contents over a stand of cards and a glass display of arty somethings. As there were no signs, we asked if it was table service - to which a very busy and important man said "no, go upstairs please". As we ascended the stairs, it was easy to realise why the man had fallen. We took a seat upstairs and left Jodie to do the ordering. There were 5 staff behind the very small counter. One was making the coffees and taking the orders, one was cutting tomatoes, one was telling another one about how long it took him to feed the cat, one was complaining about having to clean up the mess the previous customer had made and the last one was being busy and important. So even though Jodie was at the front of the line, it took a good 15 minutes to wait, order, wait, explain and then eventually get our order all the while having to listen to all the bullshit going on behind the very small counter. During her line wait - Jodie commented that she couldn't believe that people have to carry trays down those stairs to which the woman behind the coffee machine replied without looking up, "Well, they do".

As we sat and endured our coffee and cake, we watched a number of people almost tumble down the stairs with their hot beverages in rediculously shaped glasses...... like an accident just waiting to happen..... where is the OHS when you want them?

The drinks were terrible. The cakes were old. The experience is one we'd rather forget.

The hills are alive at St Teresa's Convent

When searching for accommodation at Tenby - it was pretty slim pickings - everything was booked out - except for St Teresa's Old Convent, which is now a guest house. You would think that would be a bit of a worry, but it turned out to be an absolute gem. Being convent girls ourselves (Well, Jode and I have had dealings with the nuns in our time) we thought it would be nostalgic and cute to stay in real convent rooms..... and we weren't disappointed. It was run by a lovely Welsh couple, Geoff and Linda who also ran tea rooms out of the basement - Linda made all the cakes herself - OMG!!! The cakes were out of this world!

The town of Tenby itself was a gorgeous little quaint village with pastel coloured houses and nice little shops and pubs and icecream parlours - a real seaside village.

High Tide

Low Tide

Also, the beach was amazing.... as we sat and watched the people on the beach we were surprised at how many people were swimming as it was warm, but not hot enough for swimming (in our opinions). But the water was beautiful and crystal clear and the beach was so clean. We could have been in Broome if we didn't know any better! Another thing that surprised us was the tides.....we now know where the water goes at low tide in Broome - Tenby! We spent hours just sitting and watching the tides go in and out - you would have thought we had never seen tides before!

I've heard of the $2 shop and 1 pound shop..... but I've never heard of the 1 pound 20 shop - so how famous is it really?

Tenby is also where we have experienced the worst meal of our lives........ I want you to imagine a crab sandwich - their specialty.... but now I want you to imagine taking the crab and popping the whole thing, shell, guts, brown gooey stuff and white meat into a blender - then I want you to think of stale, thick bread and then imagine slapping that mixture onto the bread and serving it to paying customers with a side of what we guessed might have been coleslaw. It was soooooo disgusting that I couldn't even bring myself to take a photo of it. It going to Tenby - you have been warned!

All the benches in the village are dedicated to someone - this was the best one!

The village was full of large, white (sun burnt), holiday makers who insisted on wearing clothes that were 1-2 sizes too small for them. Now, we realise that we are not a family of oil paintings, but we did feel decidedly better about ourselves as we sat and watched the parade pass by.

This was our viewing bench for both people and tides.

We were walking up the beach and I noticed a lady with an odd tattoo on the back of her shoulder. As we got closer to her I realised that it wasn't a tattoo at all........... some people say it's lucky - I say it's lucky when it doesn't happen to you!

The Mumbles - Wales

This is The Mumbles - a lovely seaside town in the south of Wales just out of Swansea where my Great Grandfather was born.

We stayed at a lovely B&B run by a lady who when greeting us at the front door in her raggy clothes and unwashed, unbrushed hair and apron said, "Hi, I don't do neat" - to which we all thought 'no, but do you do clean?'. We had asked for rooms with a seaview. We were given one on the very top floor - the attic actually, which Jodie took even thought she couldn't stand up straight anywhere in the room except on the stairs, but had a fabulous view and gorgeous sea breeze flowing through some enormous windows. Jen and I shared a room on the ground floor where they were doing renovations just outside our door and although we had seaviews, we couldn't open the door or window or curtains for that matter because of the sun, the traffic noise and the fact that people could see directly into our room. Other than that it was very comfy.

Here is Jen enjoying our sea view patio

We had done some research before we arrived about where my great grandfather lived, and were quite confident that he was born in Norton House. We even found our great great grandfather's name in a book linked to the house. We found the house and set about asking questions about the building's history. People were giving us lots of information and we even went in and looked around imagining what it would have looked like back in that day. We tried to book our accommodation there and which didn't pan out and so we thought we'd have dinner there instead. But because of a fabulously beautiful evening we decided to walk into town rather than have dinner in a darkened dining room and in hindsight, what a fabulous decision that was because on our last day, just after breakfast and just before we were packing the car to head out of The Mumbles - we were looking at a map of the town and noticed that there used to be a Norton Lodge across the road from Norton House..... when we went back and checked the book where we had found our GG Grandfather's name it turns out that it actually said Lodge - not House. So we nearly left the little village of The Mumbles without actually seeing the place we had gone there to see! Our car was parked about 20 metres from the property gates, it is now an elderly folks day centre. We popped in and spoke to a lady there and explained who we were and asked if we could have a look around the garden and bless her - she showed us around the whole house. Some of the house - the staircase, the stainglassed windows and the doorframes are the originals. It was fabulous. And...... here it is!

Norton Lodge

P.S: Catherine Zeta Jones is also said to have been born here - we didn't see her though.

Barry, Wales

We went to Barry for three reasons.

1. It's called Barry

2. Gavin and Stacey is based there

3. Our new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard was born there

So we went to have a look........ and this was the photo that we took trying to get out of there quickly!

A visit with the Venuses

My lovely friends Kat and Shaun and they gorgeous baby daughters have moved out of London and into the countryside, so a special visit was necessary to see them and meet the new addition - Miss Isabella. Unfortunately, it was only a fleeting visit, but it was good to see that Kat is as beautiful as ever, Shaun as handsome and that they make very pretty babies!

Kat, Isabella, Shaun and Amelia

Amelia - when I saw her last time, she wasn't even crawling!!!!

CUTE! CUTE! CUTE!

The Vicar of Dibley

The Vicar of Dibley has long been a favourite show in our household. It's one of those shows that I, and me Jenny can watch over and over - which is lucky, because there aren't that many episodes..... so when this trip was discussed, Jen found an article about the little village that the show is filmed in - Turville, which is conveniently enough located just off the M40 between High Wycome and Oxford. Now you can't actually stay in the village, but you can have a stonking great plate of bangers and mash at the local pub.

That naturally has to be consumed with a jug o Pimms!

The Vicarage.

Now, because you can't stay in the village, I had to find somewhere close by which I did by way of the Fox Country Inn in Ibstone - I give you the name of this place so you don't fall into the same trap that we did if you ever happen upon it - which was staying there!

Let me break it down for you.

The Inn was in itself quite quaint and sweet and looked lovely and was surrounded by fields. There were people there eating lunch and watching England playing in the World Cup.
The girl at the front desk was lovely and friendly although she didn't know where Turville was (the next village approx 2.5 miles down the road) but she said if we went in 'that' direction, we were sure to come across some signs.

She also offered me free wifi which I was later asked (by another chap) to pay for - I don't think so.

We were given 2 rooms - which is what we asked for, so far, so good. 1 room (Jodie's) had a fabulous view over the back field and the other room (mine and Jen's) had a terrible view over the carpark and was stinking hot. We had decided that because of the heat and because we'd just eaten lunch, we would all have a lay down. Our room was so hot that I had to have a cold shower and Jen and I had to strip down to our underwear with a fan blowing at full speed. Now I know that our standards are perhaps a little higher than they should be in a little village like this, but our towels were threadbare and one had a hole in it - one that would be easily noticed when you were folding it up for the room. Jodie came down to see how we were and was nearly pushed back with the heat escaping through the door. We all went back to her cool room and tried to sit around the one little open window. We found a fan in Jodie's room, but it was one of those tiny little ones and it was COVERED in dust..... we still turned it on, so now we were sitting in a dust filled room trying to get air from one window - why didn't we just go downstairs and sit outside with a pint? I hear you ask..... We did ask ourselves that same question but we were in our jamies. When we did eventually dress and go downstairs this is when the saga unfolded.

At the bar - where the ceiling is so low that I had to bend over to walk through - so you can only imagine what Jodie had to do - there was a little boy..... his name was Toby. I know this because it seemed that his name was called out quite frequently and everyone in the bar knew him. Toby's mum had been watching the England game and she was supporting them vigoriously. She was there with her partner, but they'd had an arguement (we found out from the waitress) and went home at about 8.30pm leaving an "overdone" mum and little Toby at the pub. Toby was flinging bar mats around, nearly knocking over drinks; Running through the bar scraming; slamming the door; running through the garden; kicking pebbles out of the garden and towards the other patrons who were trying hard not to notice; pulling the heavy wooden chairs over and letting them slam to the ground. Mum was doing everything she could to take no notice of Toby.

We had dinner - a tasteless, watery mushroom soup and whilst we ate, we were treated to the barman rearranging the dining room by way of dragging the tables and chairs around. He was setting up for a very important conference tomorrow.

As we were heading back upstairs to our oven, hot boxes for the night, I asked the man at the desk, the unfriendly one who tried to charge me for the free wifi I'd been offered if we had breakfast included in our rate. He said in a voice that could have been described as contemptful, "No, you don't" - now this could read fairly innocent, but believe me, it made me pull back a little and enabled me to reply, "Thank goodness, that means that we can get the hell out of here as early as we can!"

And now to end with a joke: What sort of cheese do you use to hide a horse? Mascapone!